the Federal Maritime Commission has approved of the alliance between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma



Federal agency American Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has given the green light unanimously to the project of unification of the management of the ports of Seattle and Tacoma that is introduced the slid autumn from the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma ( of 8 October 2014). The new organizational order of the two ports, that they are the main marine ports of call of the State of Washington, becomes official today under the denomination Northwest Seaport Alliance and will become operating next 1° August with the creation of the Port Development Authority (PDA), directive that will have the task to manage determined harbour infrastructures and to guide the activities of development and management of the two harbour ports of call.

Scope of the alliance is not only that to allow with management of the two ports to meet, to discuss, to collect and to share information, to coordinate themselves and to reach agreements and to place measures in existence, but it includes also the management and the use of infrastructures in the within of the alliance, the development in municipality of business activities, activity of planning, development and I use of structures, the common definition of rates, taxes, norms and regulations.

The FMC has explained that the authorization to the execution of the project is granted in consideration of the conviction that this agreement will not determine a reduction of the competition neither will generate an increase of the shipping charges and not even a reduction of the transport services. The alliance - it has found the federal agency - represents a effort lead from two ports that have had to face challenges in the development of the regional economy and that the investments intend to exceed these challenges together coordinating in order to improve infrastructures to the aim to attract more and more large ships. The attention of the alliance is turned to the modernization of the harbour terminals and the railway connections to the aim to improve own competitiveness.

"This alliance - it has emphasized the president of the FMC, Mario Cordero - will behind become the third main gateway of the America North of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and of the port of New York - New Jersey. That of the territories of North-West of the Pacific is a region key for the entrance and the escape of the goods from the USA, since it enlivens goods that does not only belong to the regional traffic, but also goods destined to the entire Midwest of the United States and in future this alliance will help the region to maintain competitiveness".